As the Cauvery Supervisory Committee meeting began, the police had barricaded both the sides. Public transport between the two states had been suspended, fearing vandalism. Therefore, hundreds of people were seen walking past the barricaded border and armed policemen at Hosur. Small merchants, software engineers, patients and students, all walked over no man's land, holding on to their laptops, bags of vegetables and goods, while some even cradled newborns brought straight out of hospital.

Opinion

The real impact of Reliance Jio will be measured by the extent to which it propels India's financial inclusion mission, wrote Sumita Kale and SV Divvaakar in Mint. "Reliance Jio's ambitious plan to provide cheap data connectivity across India underlines the need to focus on telecom infrastructure and service quality to enable transactions, transfers and withdrawals of funds. If Reliance Jio's nationwide roll-out prioritises the financially excluded pockets, it will be a game changer. If it spurs competition to reduce prices across the market, it could make a significant difference to the affordability of digital financial services," they wrote.

Leadership in difficult times should be a cold-blooded business. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision after Sunday's terrorist attack in Uri, should be driven by a clinical appraisal of what can be achieved, writes Praveen Swami in The Indian Express. "Lawrence Freedman, in his magisterial work on strategy, defines it thus: "Identifying objectives; and about the resources and methods for meeting such objectives". PM Modi's real problem is that while India knows its objectives — deterring Pakistan — it lacks the resources to do so," he says.

In Arunachal Pradesh, the BJP has a history of orchestrating defections in the Congress, bringing down Congress regimes, says V Bijukumar in The Hindu. "The BJP's effort to install a PPA-led government has to be seen in the larger context of its politics in the region. Though the BJP's attempt to dislodge the Congress government began soon after the general election in 2014, it accelerated following the Assam Assembly election. The newly floated North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) has been trying to dislodge Congress governments by encouraging defections and offering positions and money to the MLAs to achieve BJP supremo Amit Shah's goal of a "Congress-free" Northeast. The current political developments have bearing on Congress-ruled Manipur and Meghalaya where the BJP, under NEDA, appears to be in the mood for dislodging governments," he says.